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You'll never get any price improvement with a futures limit order since there's just a single order book at CME. But with forex, I frequently get price improvement (including on about 20% of my IB limit orders just today).

Likely they will be released only a few days before the deadline. At least that's what I recall from previous years. And the 1099s will have minor revisions until mid-year. I'm not joking. And givin your "Forex" handle, you'll be especially interested in knowing that IBs 1099s contain no...

I expect QT will survive in some form. I opened an account at TDAmeritrade solely so I could get QT without a license fee. I wouldn't have any problems transferring my account if I lose this benefit and I'm sure others would as well.

It's useful to hear an analyst's rationale for their recommendation. Understand their assumptions. Capture their main theme and tuck it away. Compare it with other information you're hearing. This will help you make the right call down the road.

I assume you're talking about the new regs that go into effect next year. My understanding is that FIFO is the default method but you can also use LIFO, specific identification, etc. Whatever your broker is capable of handling.

It's the honor system for stock transactions as well. Your broker only reports proceeds from sales, not your cost/basis in the stock that you need to compute P/L (although this will be changing for stocks purchased starting next year). As for forex with IB, I do two things. 1) I record...

In the perfect world, the value of the stock at the close before the ex-dividend date will be equal to the value of the stock plus dividend when it opens on the ex-dividend date. But of course, we don't live in a perfect world. The ordinary vs. capital gain tax issue is just one example...

Risk aversion caused by Europe's latest PIGS crisis seems like a more likely explanation to me since forex liquidity providers aren't necessarily celebrating any holidays during European trading hours (which includes U.S. AM).

The commission cost is small. It's 0.2 pips with a minimum of $2.50. An exchange of even $100k is just $2.50. Spreads vary somewhat throughout the day but the majors will generally be 1 pip.

You'll get the exchange rate in effect at the time you make the transfer. That will be the IDEALPRO rate if you are transferring a specified minimum of funds (varies by currency but generally around $25-30k). If a smaller amount, you'll get the IDEAL rate. Either way you'll pay a commission.

Here's how it would work with Interactive Brokers. When you buy AUD.CAD (not CAD.AUD), you borrow CAD from IB to purchase AUD. If you want CAD then you are borrowing AUD to buy CAD. Either way you always maintain the $100k in USD although some of it will be used to support the margin on the...

About 20% of my forex limit orders at IB are executed with price improvement. I doubt you'll see this with most brokers and results from IB not taking the other side of the trade but rather passing it to a market maker. It oftens pays for the commission. Just something else to consider.

I've never heard of this feature. IB use to E-mail the account statement daily but suspended this when they introduced it online several years ago.

I'm not sure if this would work but go into Configure > Feature Selector > Order Management > Order Entry Tools and you'll find FX Trader. Maybe you can do something here.

Refco was not subject to the regulations referred to. Forex is OTC and therefore subject to it's own risks.

E-Trade and Fidelity do ACH transfers.

When I last upgraded TWS (earlier this year to build 901.8) I immediately noticed that the commissions reported on the Trades screen were in the transaction currency and not the base currency. For example, when buying AUD.NZD the commission would be shown in NZD rather than USD. I contacted...

IB's commission is 0.2 pips (with a $2.50 minimum). Their spreads on the USD/EUR are typically 1 pip and sometimes just 1/2 pip. Do the math and you'll see that commission free isn't always the cheapest way to go.

Yes. With IB you are buying and selling the actual currencies and taking margin loans when you are short a currency.

I can't comment on TWS for forex versus other platforms since I've only used IB. But two comments: 1) IB doesn't make a market. But they generally have lots of liquidity providers. So before being concerned about their commission charge (0.2 pips with $2.50 minimum), compare their spreads...